On the Road Again

I should post in my blog more often. Because the last time I put anything here was almost a year ago, and it was shortly after I had blown my new controller to kingdom come. Funny thing about those controllers ... you cannot expect to solder in new connections using a standard soldering iron. The beads of solder holding in those mosfets are thick as rope. And a 40 watt soldering iron wouldn't even put a dent in it. Even with a torch, I had a hard time returning the solder to liquid form and actually singed the circuit board in the process. So - that controller was probably just a waste of money.

With that I began working on financing a new motor and a new controller to go with it. And when I say "to go with it", I mean AS A PAIR! Then there would be no guesswork as to whether these two things should work together. This ended up being quite expensive. But I have had several tubs of action figures in my basement since the 90's and some of them ended up bringing me quite a bit of money on eBay. It took a good three months to accumulate the dough, and another couple of weeks to get the parts.

I bought a 72v motor and controller from Golden Motor in Canada. I had quoted out the same stuff from the manufactured in China (still called Golden Motor) but they wanted a few bucks more for each item, plus a few hundred more in shipping. Besides, ordering from Canada I was able to ask the reseller all the questions I had about the stuff.

Once I had the parts in my possession, so began a new challenge. How would I connect the dang thing? One one side (the drive shaft) I had an 18 spline male. And on the motor side, I had a standard 7/8" shaft, also male. I would need some sort of coupler to connect the two and not surprisingly, there is no such thing to buy off the shelf.

My son has a friend who works in a welding shop, and he was up to the challenge. So I bought a 1966' clutch pad which happened to have an 18 spline on it. And then I bought a 7/8" inch coupler to attach to it. After a few mishaps and misunderstandings - he churned out the coupler for me.

He had one hell of a time welding these parts together because the metals weren't at all similar. It was ugly, but appeared to be functional ...

 

My only fears were that with all the pitting that had occurred, it might just split on me. Also, it wasn't straight as an arrow, and I would hate to cause permanent driveshaft damage. For that matter, would it spin correctly seeing how it probably wasn't 100% weighted from all sides?

So I went on a quest to find someone who might make me a more trustworthy coupler. And I struck gold when I found a guy named Jim Donovan on a buggies forum. This guy is a mad scientist and had produced some very professional parts for a lot of people. Jim was nice enough to take on the project and not cost me an arm and a leg for it. 

Here is that new coupler on my splined driveshaft ...

Then it was just a matter of finding the right way to space my motor from the driveshaft. That is, I need to put a huge buffer between the motor and mount to accommodate the size of the coupler and the length of the motor shaft. Thankfully the young man that made my first coupler also made me a bunch of steel plates with hole measurements that I had given him.

So I threw my motor into a shopping cart and went up and down the aisles at Lowes until I found fitting bolts. With the motor bolted to the plate - I needed to bolt the plate to the drive shaft opening. This would prove more difficult than I had originally thought. I needed bolts that were just the right length (or longer) but not too thick that it wouldn't go through the holes on my mount. My goals in all of this were to 1) NOT change the motor in any way, and 2) not change the motor mount in any way. For one, my motor is under warranty. But I am sure if I sawed half the shaft off of it, the warranty would expire immediately. Also, I wanted to be able to throw my old motor back in if I could never make this work.

For spacers I ended up getting small lengths of pipe from the pumping department, and then using a hacksaw, I tirelessly cropped off 1/2" or so on all four of them. It was not fun trying to hold four dangly bolts and spacers, while lifting the full weight of the motor, and somehow still slide the motor over the shaft without dropping the 'key' out of it. To get the plumbing pieces to stay put, I ended up wrapping them up with electrical tape. It took many, many tries. And I think my arms are still sore.

With that, I went onto the electrical connections. I also didn't want to make any changes to the controllers (no cutting of wires!) so I ordered some weatherproof connectors off of eBay that matched what the controller had. It was nice to crop off the old controller wiring, which I had made a real mess of over the past year. The new connectors were a lot of fun to install and it gave everything a professional look.

Lastly, I connected my water cooled radiator lines. I had done all this months earlier, so it was just a matter of connecting the lines to the motor and filling up the radiator with antifreeze.

Here is the finished product ...

The blue plastic is a cropped piece of a detergent bottle. I had plans of sealing the center column to protect my driveshaft from the elements. As of yet, that hasn't happened. But the "splashguard" has worked quite well! Not a single drop of water or pebble has ended up in there. At some point I will end up sealing this the rest of the way. Working with stiff plastic and silicone sealant is a pain in the arse. Perhaps I will construct something outside of the vehicle and attach it later.

So things were great until ...

I was driving to work about a week ago. It had been raining for three straight days. And that morning, it was pouring down. As I came away from a red light I suddenly felt a jolt and lost all power. NOT GOOD. After resetting the car several times and quietly crying to myself - the car suddenly decided to get moving again. I took it up and down a few local sidestreets when BOOM, it was suddenly dead again. And I mean DEAD! A friend and coworker was nice enough to tow me home that morning where the car sat in the driveway for a week, drying out.

Once dried out - it was up and running just fine again, so I knew my wiring was getting wet somewhere. These waterproof connections might be water tight ... but the wires running into them are not. I did a little research and watched a few YouTube videos and learned some industry tricks.

#1 - Dialectric grease - This stuff comes in a can with a lever on the side, and it shoots out with bit of pressure. It's got a sticky sort of feel to it. Like clear bathroom calk that hasn't set yet. This stuff will sit on your electrical wires and connections and have no effect on them, and is not conductive. So you are free to "fill" those areas between the wire and the connectors. And it's a lot of fun. Aim it just right, pull the trigger, and you can watch the "tube" fill up around the exposed wire elements.

#2 - Liquid tape - This is basically a paint-on electrical tape. It comes in a little can with a brush/lid like rubber cement. It brushes on easy and dries very fast. And once you have painted it over your wires and connectors, you are keeping that grease from ever sneaking out on you. Oddly enough, it seems that this was done with the hall wiring coming out of the motor ... but not on the hall wiring coming out of the controller (all came from the same company?).

And NOW - things are good again, even in the rain. Some other fun things to note from along the way.

Controller voltage - I did a lot of worrying about ordering the controller. Do I get a 48v or a 72v when I have a 60v system? I listened to the right people and got a 72v, which ended up not being a problem at all. Because when I connected up to the controller to program it, the options in a voltage dropdown are 48/60/72. 60v, set!! Funny though that Golden Motor "support" out of China could not tell me this. So the support is lousy. There, I said it.

Throttle (pedal) - My damned throttle has been a problem with the past two controllers I have connected to it. Seems if I stepped down and took off a little too fast, the controller would cut the motor off for a few seconds. I have a proven theory that this stupid throttle is allowing all 5v to pass through it when I go full-throttle. Most throttles will stop at 4.5v or so. The effect on the controller is an over-voltage or throttle failure. Thankfully, that USB programming cable came in handy again. All of those settings are customize-able. So cranking the "highest allowed throttle voltage" to the max of 4.8v fixed this problem for me. 

Speed - I am still slow, in that I cannot get over 25mph. Yet, getting up to 25mph is a breeze (literally). And going uphill? NO PROBLEM. Hills that I feared to take on before now present me with no problems. That motor has some MUSCLE!

There are still dozens of other things I can play with in my controller settings that might give me a bit more speed. Such as the RPM (default is 4000, but it will go up to 6000). Playing with the RPM might affect my torque though. Or some feature for short-term boosts. There is an automatic boost, or a manual. But I have no pair of wires from the controller to activate it. And what does it do really? I turned it on and drove around the block and didn't notice anything different.

Okay, that is enough banter for now. More to come later?